The Chronicles of Switch
by Alex Kade
Summary: These are the first stories of Switch (aka Will Slate), my hacker character in the Shadowrun AU universe created by myself and Lily Zen. This is a short collection about the person he was before meeting up with Feral, an event that changed his life forever.
1. About a Boy

**A/N:** Back in 2012 a few friends and I started an online Shadowrun campaign. As roleplay games do, it sort of died before we got too far, but my friend Lily Zen and I loved our characters so much, we decided to just continue their stories via pieces of fiction. Years later and we're still doing it. While Lily has already published a few of our collaborated stories, I've kept an archive of my solo works alllll to myself. I figured it was time to share so that those who are following the stories on Lily's page can have some missing blanks filled in, considering all of our works tie together to form an entirely new universe. For those hardcore Shadowrun folks, as we wrote we started deviating more and more from the canon universe and began making things up on our own that fit what we wanted better, so you'll notice that this world gradually steers away from most rules you'd need for game play. Consider it an AU.

 **~SR~SR~SR~SR~SR~SR~SR~**

Will Bradleys.

Eight.

"Stay here and be quiet, alright?"

Will barely acknowledges his dad, simply nodding and sitting down on the floor in the far back corner of the building. It's his usual spot in any of these types of fancy functions, and he's done enough of these to know that his job is to disappear against the wall. He's already got his music playing in his headphones, his Captain Gizmo goggles displaying his favorite Shadow League cartoon in overlay on top of the room full of chairs where people in suits are filing in, and his fingers are curled around his tiny Moon Mobile that he'll inevitably have whirring in circles around him to keep himself occupied.

"Good boy," his dad says, patting him on the head before making his way over to the doors to greet his boss, Damien Slate.

Will listens to them exchange friendly greetings before his dad starts in on new things that may have come up just before the conference, things that Damien may need to know about current trends or concerns or any number of other business-related items. It's all nonsense to the boy, and he quickly tunes them out as they make their way to the front of the room. He'll be left to amuse himself for the next hour or so, after which his dad will be back to claim him. Mr. Slate will give him a bar of real chocolate - Will's favorite part of these meetings - that he'll hang onto and share with his friends back home. It's worth the price of having to sit by and behave while his dad does his job as Mr. Slate's favorite assistant.

He's partway through his third cartoon when the walls in the room start exploding in on themselves, showering the screaming businessmen and women with dust and pieces of plaster. Will ducks his head as another large hole appears in the wall above him, and a long shaft of metal from a shattered support beam nearly skewers him to the floor, missing him by mere inches. Breathing heavily at his realized near-death, the boy looks up to see a lone man step through the doorway, unnoticed amidst the panic and chaos the explosions are creating. Calmly, the man lifts up some sort of weapon, aiming it at the front of the room.

Will's eyes track the aim, seeing Mr. Slate being helped up off the floor by some other man, and his father standing up a few feet away.

"Dad! Look out!" he screams, sending the alert through his comm, worried that his dad might get caught by whatever the man is about to send in that direction.

His father looks back, sees what has his son so frightened, catches the moment when the assassin pulls the trigger, and makes a split second decision to put himself between his employer and the oncoming projectiles.

Will watches in almost slowed time, makes eye contact with his father for the briefest moment before the unbelievable happens. His dad doesn't move out of the way. Instead, he throws himself in front of Mr. Slate, back turned to the assassin, and catches all four launched blades through his back.

Everything freezes for what seems like an eternity.

At the front of the room, Damien catches Will's father against hard against his chest. "Jack?" he whispers, before his own pain sets in. Looking down, he sees that the blades have caught him, too, impaling the two men together.

Jack becomes dead weight in Damien's arms, and gravity pulls them both to the ground, separating them as they descend. Jack falls to the side, Damien lands on his back, and time starts up again.

Armed troops rush in, instantly killing the assassin. Medics swarm the room, making their way to the downed Slate, first, bypassing the numerous other injured people still scattered throughout.

Will slowly forces himself up on shaky legs, sees the way his father is ignored, but makes no attempt to scream at them to help. His PAN has already showed him his father's vitals. There's nothing. No movement, no breath, no heartbeat. The blade running through the center of his chest took care of all that within seconds.

The boy makes his way to the front of the room, doing his best to ignore the pool of dark blood surrounding his father's body. He kneels down at Jack's head and closes the lids on his father's sightless eyes. He doesn't cry.

 _He left me_ , he thinks, taking a glance over at the medics lifting Damien onto a gurney. _He left me for him._

Damien turns his head then and meets the boy's eyes. He whispers something up at one of the medics, who nods and approaches young Will.

"Son, Mr. Slate wants you to come with him to the hospital."

"Why?" Will asks absently.

"Because you have nowhere else to go."

The words hit him like a bat to the stomach, sending him into a further state of shock. The medic gently grasps the boy's numb hand and leads him away, taking him away from his life as the assistant's son. Soon, his new life will begin, and he'll make headlines as the boy who Mr. Slate so generously took in following his father's heroic sacrifice.

It takes some time before Will cares about any of it, longer for him to adjust to it, and longer still for him to grow comfortable with it. What time never does is to allow him to accept it. He will never accept the decision his father made to put his boss, to put the success of a company, over his own son. It is for this reason that Will never aspires to step into Damien's shoes. He doesn't want to be involved with the corp. He doesn't care about the notion that one day the entire thing could fall. There are real people out there with real problems, people that need saving.

He's just got better things to do.


	2. Sweet Sixteen

Will Slate.

Sixteen. (Pre sim mod implant.)

It's in his hands. An actual, physical data chip to plug into his sim module. He's not supposed to have it. Somehow that fact makes it even more appealing to him.

He knows he shouldn't try it. He's heard the stories, knows the risks, but curiosity and plain teenage idiocy overrules his common sense. He's also heard about the perks, after all.

Making sure his door is locked, he plugs the data chip into his simsense player, hooks the player to his commlink, and turns the simvid on.

Correction.

He turns the BTL on.

His breath catches in his throat the second the sim begins. He instantly understands the rush, the need to be connected to everything on this level at all times. He's aware of everything recorded on the beetle at a level higher than he could even imagine. The usual feeling of still being connected to his own body, that safety net always humming just at the edge of his consciousness, is gone. He is no longer Will Slate on any level. He is completely and utterly _Destructocon!_

Only not quite, because this simvid is a little indy chip, the only adaptation out there that shows the story of how Destructocon became his superhuman self in full detail. This arc, this "birth", is generally considered too graphic to show in all its glory. Any other sim out there just has quick flashbacks, short clips, telling without showing how it came to be that the hero went from simple human lawyer, Drake Nebulous, to almost full android and villain-thumper extraordinaire.

Will wanted to see it all, to experience it all.

And it's a thrill.

And then it's a nightmare.

He gets to the attack scene, his mind so overwhelmed with the heightened senses that he is already on the verge of becoming an addict on his first run, until the first wave of pain hits him.

It starts with a gunshot to his stomach, and as Drake doubles over, gasping at the burn tunneling through his middle, Will is sure his own body must actually be pumping out the same warm fluids that his hand is desperate to hold in. It takes his own breath away, or at least he thinks it does. In truth, his physical body is breathing just fine, though at a more rapid pace to match his suddenly increased heart rate.

A second shot hits him high in the right side of his chest, knocking him backwards to the the ground. He screams out in agony, his physical lips pushing out a small whimper as a shadow of the sound he makes inside the sim. And now he really _can't_ breathe. Drake/Will panics at the sensation, his hands scrambling for purchase on the hard asphalt beneath him. The fire in his abdomen, the crushing weight on his chest, has Will locked in a state of shock, the unexpected realness of it all hindering his ability to think clearly.

"Well, well, Drake," a cold voice laughs from somewhere above him. "Not such a hot shot now, are you?"

Sirus Welton leans into Will's line of sight, smiling his evil, villainous grin. Will swallows. He knows what'll happen next, tries to tell Sirus to stop, but he isn't in control. Drake is in control.

"Fuck...you..." he hears his mouth force out between struggling breaths.

"No," Sirus hisses. "Fuck _you_. I'll make you suffer every second before you're allowed to die, you miserable little shit."

And Will knows that's exactly what Sirus will do.

He tries to shut his eyes as the barrel of a large gun flashes in his peripheral vision. He can't, because Drake doesn't. He watches, helpless, as one blast blows his hand away, leaving a mangled stump of charred flesh and bone.

Drake/Will somehow finds the air to scream.

Reality somehow snaps back into Will's mind.

"Off! Turn off!" he screams both inside the program and out, though the verbal command isn't necessary. His sim mod responds to his mental desire to shut the vid down, as per usual, but as desperate as he is to get out before Sirus's fun _really_ begins, the shouting seems vital to his survival.

Will returns to his room, still lying on the couch, Henry (his favorite toy helicopter) still buzzing away in happy circles around the ceiling.

And he still hurts.

The program is off, and he still feels the residual sense of pain in his stomach and chest - not unbearable like in the program, but still there. And his hand...

"Oh my god."

He can't feel his hand at all. It won't respond to the commands he's giving it. It's just lying there in his lap, motionless, dead, as if it isn't there.

Will tries his best not to panic. This is normal. It's fine. Once his brain catches up to the real world again, it'll be fine. He'll stop feeling the bullet holes that aren't there (the sensations are already starting to fade, in fact), and his hand will work again. It'll just take a few minutes.

Or hours.

Or days.

He's forced to approach Damien on the man's return from his business trip and fess up to what he's done. Damien is furious.

"You used a BTL? Are you a complete moron? Do you have any idea what that would do to my reputation if people found out my son was a chip head?"

"It was just once, Dad, and I won't do it again, I swear. I didn't even make it through the whole sim." Will's voice is quiet, ashamed, knowing he deserves the chastisement.

"Now I have to call someone in here to fix your idiot head," his father continues as if Will had never spoken. "You do this again, and you won't _get_ your hand back. Do you understand me?"

Will nods. His father doesn't bluff, not to him. Next time it could be twice as bad, could possibly put him in a wheelchair forever or far worse, but Damien wouldn't fix him. He'd be left to suffer his fate as both a harsh lesson and out of a little bit of spite.

Not that it matters. Will never intends on using a beetle ever again. No, sir, his sim will never be hot again. The thrill of a higher sense of connection, of being able to work the Matrix at a speed previously unimaginable, it isn't worth this. It isn't worth the risk of pain, of losing his motor function. He's already learned his lesson.

A mage is brought in to put him in a trance, to get inside his head and rewind the moment when his hand is demolished in front of his eyes. In backwards time, he watches with fascination as flesh and bone piece themselves back together, his hand reappearing as the blast sucks itself back up into the barrel of the gun.

The mage does _not_ rewind far enough back to erase the memory of the pain from the bullet wounds.

Will would hold onto that graphic memory for later, the trauma reminding him in the future, as Switch, that getting shot...royally sucks.

He'd consider that part of the experience a good thing, giving him a little more incentive to keep himself safe.

At sixteen, though, relieved to have his hand back, and grounded for the next four months, his only thought is that chip heads are insane.

And that the new Sonicman sim should be coming out next week. The _legal_ version.


	3. More Than Meets the Eye

Will Slate.

 _Morning._

 _"Wake up, it's time to fight crime. Wake up, it's time to fight crime. Wake-"_

Will knocks the little Captain Victorio alarm robot off his dresser and rolls over. "It's Saturday, Victorio. Crime sleeps in on Saturdays." He lays there for another ten seconds before rolling back over and reaching for the drawer, pulling out a standard commlink and his glasses. Using simple eye movements and verbal commands he runs through his schedule, and groans when he sees that there's a press conference he's expected to attend later in the afternoon. He hates press conferences.

On the plus side, there's still plenty of day to fill before before then, and that new simvid he's been dying to see _does_ come out today...

Getting up, he checks his messages and blogs as he trudges across his top notch, hotel suite-sized room towards the shower. As per usual in the mornings, he gets a little too involved with the augmented vision and doesn't pay attention to where he's walking. He trips over something on the floor, stubbing his toe.

"Ow, ow!" he whines, hopping around on one foot a few times. When he stops, he glares down at the culprit. "Henry, what did I tell you about landing in my walking space? Your hellipad is," he brings up the helicopter's controls on his PAN, "over there on the shelf."

Henry the Helicopter dutifully obeys the voice command and flies itself to its ordered destination.

Grabbing some basic clothing from the walk-in closet on the way by (loose-fitted jeans, longsleeve tee-shirt), he lazily scuffs along to the bathroom. Before his shower, he makes certain to send an order through the comm for his breakfast of Saturn Rings Cereal (his favorite sugary, fruity breakfast), real milk (none of that soy nonsense, thank you very much), and a couple oatmeal apple cookies for good measure (gotta have _something_ healthy in there, after all). His breakfast is ready and waiting for him by the time he gets out of the shower, having been brought up by one of the house's service drones.

He dives back into the Matrix while he eats, continuing to communicate with various online friends while he half watches a morning cartoon being played out on the center carpet via his trideo player. He remains in his room surfing around the Matrix for the rest of the morning via regular augmented reality, not doing anything spectacular, just socializing in the only real way he knows how.

A timer goes off, flashing a message on the right side of his vision. He brings it to the front of his focus and smiles as he sees his simvid is ready for viewing. Everything else at that point gets shut off. He retrieves his black leather gloves and his earbuds for better "viewing" experience, ditches the standard box commlink for his belt with the comm built right into the buckle, gets comfortable on the couch, and connects his sim module (his only internal implantation) to the simvid.

He spends the next two hours living as _The Dark Invader_ , feeling all the emotions, actions, punches, pains, exhilaration, defeat, losses, and that passionate last-scene kiss that the lead character feels. Just on a whim, he decides to step into the villain for a tiny portion of the movie. It makes him feel sick to his stomach, so he switches back to hero mode. When the hero isn't on screen, he tries out the role of the damsel in distress. That one's weird. It makes him laugh, but no thank you. He much prefers to be the hero.

 _Afternoon_.

Lunch consists of a simple sandwich made with...meat. It's supposed to be turkey, tastes like turkey, and Damien isn't one for getting anything that might be contaminated, so Will doesn't question it too much. He just knows real turkey is hard to come by in the area, but as long as it isn't that fake soy crap, he's willing to shrug it off. Turkey sandwich it is, then. With cheese. _Real_ cheese.

He actually goes down to the dining area for lunch, belt-comm, glasses, gloves, and earbuds still jacked in and running, as they will be for the rest of the day. He's using just the standard augmented reality again, keeping the sim turned off for the time being unless something interesting flashes by on his new-toys-info blog that he wants to "feel". Nobody in the building comes to join him, or says hello, or even stops to remind him about the press conference. He eats alone in silence, but surrounded by all the conscious minds and sounds and sights of everything and everyone logged into the Matrix that he wishes to access. He doesn't really notice that no one comes to socialize with him in real life.

He sits at the table long after he's finished, flipping through his vast collection of digital comics. The new stuff is amazing, but he still has a tendency to lean towards the classics. No one can top old school Batman or Deadpool or Punisher or Green Lantern. Writers back before The Awakening - they knew what they were doing. They knew what a true superhero was _really_ all about.

 _Late Afternoon._

He's changed his casual wear for an expensive suit and black tie. A car picks him up out front to drive him to the location of the press release. His father isn't in the car.

One of Damien's assistants directs Will to where he needs to be upon his arrival, and there's a moment when he flashes back to a memory of his real father performing exactly the same type of menial tasks. He shakes it off. That was a long time ago and has no relevance to him now.

Plastering on his "public smile," he steps out in front of the cameras where Damien greets him with a very fatherly hug, pat on the back, pulling out into a handshake. They talk like old friends, but Will catches the disapproving look on his father's face at the fact that Will is still wearing all his PAN gear. Will doesn't care. It was the compromise. His gear is all built to be as discreet as possible for this exact reason - to make it appear as though he isn't always logged in even when he's long since checked out of reality. His glasses look like regular corrective lenses to anyone who bothers to pay him any attention, the earbuds are small enough not to be seen unless one looks very closely, the gloves are sleek, stylish, and pretty much accent any of the numerous black suits he wears on these occasions, and the comm was built into his fancy buckle so as not to stand out. Not that that part really mattered. _Everyone_ had a comm. If you didn't, you were probably doing something illegal.

Still, Damien insisted he must always look like he's paying full attention to his public - his _father's_ public, that is. It wouldn't look good if the obedient son was spacing out during one of his father's important moments in corporate history. Will simply learned to space out without making it _look_ like he was. If someone asked a question he didn't quite catch, his PAN would play it back for him immediately. No harm, no foul.

The conference is about to start. Will takes his seat at the table behind his father and "listens" with great respect. Sometimes Damien will mention something about him, showing off how proud he is of his adopted son, and how well he did in raising him to possibly follow in his footsteps one day. They both know that isn't true. _Everyone_ knows that isn't true. Will doesn't have the charisma or social skills to be a big executive. He's the son of his real father, not capable of being more than a loyal and knowledgeable assistant. Everyone loves the pity story, though. Big corporate exec takes in orphaned boy out of the kindness of his heart, but poor dear, what's he going to do if anything ever happens to his father? He won't make it in this biz-eats-biz world.

Will smiles. If only they knew.

The conference wraps with an applause. Will tries his best not to roll his eyes. There are handshakes and friendly moments of conversation he awkwardly works his way through. He's pretty sure it's just as awkward for the people he's talking to, but if they want to look good in "daddy's" eyes, they have to go talk to the "beloved son/charity case."

He's more glad for his PAN than ever. He doesn't think he'd be able to make it through these ordeals if he isn't constantly inhabiting some geek node somewhere on the others side of the planet.

 _Evening._

He's back in his room, lying on his back on the floor surrounded by an army of varying toys. Henry is buzzing around above his head, moving to his subtle hand gestures. Terrence the Tank is rolling over a line of "enemy vehicles" while Mick the Motorcycle is leading a high speed race around the suite. Action figures are set up all over the place, and Will places them strategically amidst the remote toy chaos so they can battle hand-to-hand at his whim.

Puffing out a heavy sigh, he lets his arms flop down to his sides and cuts off the remote links. The toys all stop moving, and Henry just falls down to the floor.

"I am soooo bored," Will whines.

Not three seconds later a familiar sense creeps into his sim, uninvited, but nevertheless not unwelcome.

Will sits up, a big grin on his face. "Phantom!"

The technomancer tsks at him. _"Aren't you a little old to be playing with toys, Will?"_

Will can feel the friendly condescending attitude, and also the slight humor as if it were his own. He doesn't mind it. It's just how Phantom likes to talk to him - to talk _through_ him.

"You wish you had toys as cool as these." Phantom scoffs, and it feels as though the air is pushed out of his own lungs. "Whatever. Do you have something for me? _Please_ tell me you have something for me. I'm dying in here! I think literally. If I don't have something to do in roughly five seconds, I'll probably implode." He feels the sensation of his eyebrow rising.

 _"I do need you for something, as a matter of fact."_

Phantom floods his senses with images, memories, emotions, and physical sensations that belong to another Emerged being held against her will.

Will is already moving before the information is fully processed. For once, he's glad for today's press conference. It means he won't be needed again for at least another week or more. No one will know that he's not around.

Switch is free to go run the shadows for a time.


	4. Alts and Egos

Switch.

Switch steps out of his rented storage locker (bought with actual earned Nuyen from runs - he has a rule not to use his corp scrip as much as possible when he's running around as Switch) in his incognito street gear. The hood on his black jacket is pulled up, covering all but a few locks of his neon green hair. Silver sunglasses with deep red-tinted lenses cover his eyes, and he walks along with his head ducked down, shadowing his face, appearing to be simply listening to the music playing through the simple headphones he's got on beneath the hood. His hands are encased in black gloves with a dark maroon patch on the back of each one, the color spanning out in a stripe that runs to each fingertip. The fabric fits so neatly that it may as well just be another layer of skin, not hindering his flexibility in any way. His black cargo pants overlaying a basic pair of black sneakers may house any number of things in the pockets, his "borrowed" commlink with its current fake ID being one of them. No one pays much heed to him as he passes by in the streets, no one will remember much about any of his physical characteristics if asked - much like his real life persona, he doesn't stand out as anything special or memorable.

Switch likes it that way. It helps keep his secret identity more...secret.

His augmented reality is in full gear while on the streets, taking his cues from the sight, sound, and touch readouts all around him. As Will, he tunes out reality in favor of the augments. As Switch, he uses the augments to safely navigate him through reality. Outside his home, outside the safety of the corp net, he can't afford not to be paying attention to both worlds.

Like right now.

He's been watching his PAN closely, keeping an eye on a man displaying no visible comm signal who's been trailing him for a while. The person is cruising around in Hidden mode, ghosting much like Switch is doing, himself. Only thing is, Hidden isn't too much of a problem for Switch to get around as long he knows there's a ghoster around. Discreetly getting into the guy's commlink ( _Oh, look at that, dude's got a bit of a track record for pickpocketing!_ ) he quickly sends in a spoof program before pulling out. He smiles as he picks up his pace, leaving the pickpocket behind screaming curses as his PAN is suddenly flipped from Hidden to Active mode, and is immediately flooded with illegal spam.

"Oops! Sorry," Switch mutters, not at all meaning it. He knows the area well (in a cyber-sense, anyway). That stretch of road is spam haven for anyone not smart enough to at least go Passive mode when walking through.

He approaches a discreet building, nothing on the outside of it that screams, "Hey! Look at me! I'm the coolest place you could possibly be at right now!" Inside, though, it serves as a safe little nook for people like himself. He happily steps through the door, nodding at the dwarf manning the desk at the entry, and makes his way to his favorite little table in the far back corner.

A gruff voice greets him as he passes. "Look at that, boys, it's Not A Man! Long time, no see, kiddo."

Switch sighs and stops beside the table, keeping his face still partially hidden in the shadow of his hood. "Hi, Tack," he greets in a somewhat sulky manner. "You know I kind of ditched that name a long time ago, right? And it was A-non-y-man."

Tack just laughs. "Whatever, kid." He waves Switch off and goes back to doing...whatever it was he was doing with his group before Switch walked in. He assumes they're just playing a hot sim game, but he doesn't care enough to actually look. Tack and his cronies are just low key hacks and chip heads, not any of his concern.

Finding his table unoccupied and shaking his head at the server - _Don't they know I don't drink that stuff by now?_ \- he shudders at the thought of actually consuming the synthahol - _Gross!_ \- and sits back to wait for his signal. He's meeting with the group of runners he'll be working with on this extraction, but he'll be doing so from the safety of one of the little hole-in-the-wall wireless pubs that he likes to frequent. He tends to do better with first meets through the Matrix where he's more comfortable and less awkward. Plus, it lets him and the rest of the team decide whether they can function with him, or if they just want to break his face by the time the meeting is through. If face-breaking is an issue, he politely bows out of the run. No harm, no foul.

The little encrypted signal pings at him, and he takes a breath before he slips into the node where the meeting is taking place, allowing his street persona image to pop up on everyone's PAN systems.

"So...I'm Switch," he starts in. If anyone wants to know his "real name" on this run, he'll introduce himself as Victor Clark, as per the created ID on his current commlink. Victor Clark is a man who will never exist again once the run is over, just like so many other aliases he's switched between on his other runs.

Rule Number 1: Never reveal your alt.

Best way to do that?

Never be the same "real life" alt twice, and never work with the same team of runners twice.

Trust amongst teammates is too much of a risk. Get the job done and get out.

That's all he needs.


	5. On the Inside

**A/N:** This story takes place almost entirely inside the Matrix, which Will transforms into his own superhero city whenever he goes in. The people he keeps referring to as "the League" or as "Tagalongs" consist of his runner team, who have very little knowledge of what it is that he actually does inside the Matrix when it comes to breaking into buildings and such. Will's alt is pretty much the exact opposite to who he is in real life, something he feels is necessary for him to succeed in his role as a team's hacker. That being said, he generally doesn't break character once he's on the inside, otherwise he's afraid he'll lose focus on the mission. He's kind of a dork like that. I should also mention that he can change his hair color at random. He's got the implants for that, in case you were wondering how his hair went from neon green in the last chapter to maroon in this one without ruining the classic black of his natural color as Will Slate.

 **~SR~SR~SR~SR~SR~SR~SR~**

The Liberator.

" _Switch, you're on_."

That's his go sign.

The outer perimeter security had been easy, taken down with simple spoofs and decryptions, all done via augmented reality through his advanced mesh network saved only for runs.

His PAN for his "in action" mode is all-inclusive, maximized to utilize his sim module to its fullest potential. The sunglasses and headphones he wears as Switch are traded out for a silver visor wrapping over his eyes and around the sides of his head, his vision unhindered by the same red "lense" similar to what's used in the sunglasses, only installed as a single piece in the visor (and if anyone asks him, he _totally_ modeled it after the one Cyclops uses...though he's pretty sure nobody in 2072 will ever ask him about Cyclops...). The audio is transmitted to his ears directly from the visor using tight beam audio, thus negating the need for any sort of earbud or headset. His touch sensory sim is controlled through the same black and maroon gloves he wears out on the street, and his cargos are similar, with the only exception being the maroon stripe down the side of each leg. His sneakers are traded in for light combat boots, and his hoodie has been replaced with a black, tightly-fitted, long-sleeve top woven with armor cloth, the neck of which comes up to cover the lower half of his face with a mask very much like a ninja's (and his hair, no longer covered by a hood, is now a deep maroon to match). There is a large maroon "V" spanning his chest (which means absolutely nothing - he just thinks the design is cool), and the top sides of the "V" continue out to form thin maroon stripes down the length of each arm. His top and pants are also fully linked into his PAN, allowing him the ability to not only regulate things like his temperature and the color of his clothes, but to also get every full sensation from his sim mod that he's willing to experience.

Getting into the inner security is a bit more difficult. On his team leader's signal, he moves around to a discreet corner of the compound where hopefully no one will stumble upon him doing his thing, because he's going to have to go all in for this part. Reaching into his pockets, he pulls out several little remote control trucks (each equipped with its very own camera and little explosive) and sets them in a circle around him. Using his PAN, he sends some of them out to a further radius to act as first volley should his meat come under threat of attack while he's otherwise occupied.

"Gabe, Mikey, Raph, you all try to come back alive, okay? Unless you need to blow something up, in which case I'll alert your next of kin...which are all right here, and will probably also die in a horrible, firey way..." He frowns, then shrugs his shoulders. "Make me proud, boys!"

He watches as the scouting trucks disappear from view before prepping for his big moment.

This is the fun part.

" _I am going in. Good luck, team. Go get our girl._ "

" _Can the pep talk, Switch. Just get us inside._ "

"'Just get us inside,'" he mimics in a whiney tone as he settles himself against the building. "A little thanks would be appreciated from time to time."

Smiling despite the grumbling, he ditches the augmented reality for the virtual one, finding himself standing on the top of a highrise, staring out at the crime-riddled streets below. His virtual image is wearing an outfit identical to the one he has on in real time, only his physique is a little more...enhanced. The Liberator couldn't really be a 5'8", 145 lb geek, right?

A woman's scream reaches his supersonic ears from the distance.

"Ratigan, you scum," he mutters, his voice low and dangerous, like if Batman and The Punisher found a way to make their voices mate and then gifted his vocal chords with their little manvoice prodigy. "Don't you know I always get the girl?"

Peering down at the petty criminals below, he bypasses them in search of Ratigan's henchmen by using his increased strength and speed to jump from one building to the next right above their heads. The League of Tagalongs can take them out without his assistance. His mission is a much more important one.

The buildings are fewer and farther between as he nears the first of his group of enemies, and he's forced to use the Liberator Line (a grappling hook, really, but everything sounds cooler with his name in front of it) from his utility belt in order to move in closer. Once in position, he sits atop his building like a stone gargoyle, waiting to strike down his victim at just the right time...

Here it is. Henchman #1 turns away just slightly, and The Liberator takes that moment to drop down to the street below. He lands on top of the goon, snapping his neck with a single twist (The Liberator doesn't play around - he's a dark hero, and sometimes killing henchmen is a necessary evil in the eyes of the greater good). He drags the body off into the shadows before the next henchman can register that something has happened, and then just as quickly, he trounces said Henchman #2.

" _Switch!_ "

The Liberator narrows his eyes. " _Shut it, Carpenterman. You want me to clean your mess before you even throw the party, it's gonna take a little time._ "

" _Carpenterman?"_

The Liberator ignores the confusion. The League of Tagalongs never did seem to appreciate the art of true super villain fighting.

Taking out another several guys one at a time, he rounds a corner to find himself facing off with four henchmen at once.

"So you wanna play?" he sneers.

The fight begins. He is a master at martial arts, a honed weapon, using every part of his body to thwart and counter the attacks made by the more feeble enemy. When one tires of the hand-to-hand, he pulls out a 9mm glock to finish the job. The Liberator laughs. "Nice antique. Wanna trade?" He then pulls his own Liberator Lasergun from behind his back and aims it at his opponent's head. He barely squeezes the trigger before a beam of maroon light shoots from the barrel, exploding the henchman's head into so many zillions of invisible pieces. The body falls to the ground, neck still smoking.

"Anyone else?" he offers with a growl.

The others turn to scatter. He can't let them escape. They'll warn Ratigan.

Three more shots are fired and he walks casually over the headless corpses on his trek to the fortress.

" _Tagalongs, get your asses through the first sector, then wait for my go. I'm going after Ratigan._ "

" _Switch, what the hell-_ "

" _Advance, assholes. Stop at the inner door._ "

Where did the League pick some of these guys up, anyway?

The henchmen on the inside aren't as easy to take down. Some of them manage to get in a couple of hits - a couple good ones. Pain means nothing to The Liberator, though. In fact, he laughs at it, is fueled by it, and he uses it to push ahead through the last of the unworthy opponents.

" _Okay, you lazy shits, the halls are clear. Don't screw up all my hard work._ "

Thankfully, the Tagalongs stay quiet this time. That's good. He doesn't need them distracting him when he enters into the rat den.

He creeps in low to the ground, not knowing where The Rat's first attack might come from, but there _would_ be one. No sooner than the thought crosses his mind when a large tail whip goes sailing above his head. He pushes up on his toes, somersaulting across the floor to the side of where the attack had come from. As he yanks two Liberator Lighters (...he's still working on a good "L" word for bombs...) from his belt, he finds himself at the mercy of a sharp talon cutting down his shoulder across his chest. He hisses and stumbles backwards, but hurls the bombs at his nemesis in the process. Both go off, lighting up the room for a second, and he can see that Ratigan is injured. Not taking the time for his opponent to regain his senses, he launches a second attack with his Liberator Lashers - his own version of whips made from chains with spiked metal tips. Circling The Rat, he snaps the chains out - right, left, right, left - slicing into Ratigan's ugly hide with each hit. Not one to be taken down so easily, his nemesis leaps at him, teeth gnashing, hoping to alter the fight back into The Rat's favor. The Liberator stands firm, ignoring the feel of sharp incisors tearing into his leg, using the moment to dig out his portable Liberator Lance - a lance made of an indestructible metal that folds down into thirds, but is as solid as oak when snapped out to its full length. With Ratigan attached to his leg, he raises the Lance high and drives it down through The Rat's skull, pinning it to the floor. The jaw on his nemesis slackens, allowing The Liberator to fall backwards to the floor, taking deep, panting breaths.

Knowing there is no time to lay around, he hauls himself back to his feet, gripping Ratigan's lookout banister for support. Scanning the area below, his eagle eyesight picks up the shape of a woman struggling against her bindings.

" _Fifth floor down. She's all yours._ "

The Liberator stands steady, holding himself up despite his bleeding wounds, keeping a lookout so the League morons can do their extraction without some hidden lackey coming up and shooting one of them in the back. As they get the girl out of danger, he shakes his head and limps his way back out of Ratigan's hole. He had heard her thanking Carpenterman as they had passed beneath him.

"Eat it up, Carpenter. We all know who does the _real_ work around here."

Taking one last look at his path of destruction, he stoically disappears back into the shadows of Lost City, ready to fight another day.


	6. Partners in Crime

Switch

Most of the time Switch is able to avoid conflict in the streets. He sticks to roads that are more public, stays out of alleys, isn't really one for the bars or clubs, and generally tries to mind his own business. Whatever he can't avoid by playing it overly cautious, he depends on his PAN to get him around. Nine times out of ten it works.

Then there's that occasional tenth time.

His run lasts longer than it should, keeping him out later in a more dangerous part of town than he's comfortable with. The job done, his fellow runners feel no obligation to escort him on his way to his current temporary living quarters. Plus, The Liberator had been a little more...short with the League than normal. Switch doesn't blame himself for that. They were being idiots and deserved it. Still, that left him on his own.

 _No problem. Just think like a ninja. Activate stealth mode._

He does okay for a little while, sticking to the shadows, letting his PAN alert him of whispers in the dark before they come close enough to be heard as threatening voices. As advanced as his running system is, though, the computer can't catch everything. It's designed to pick up digital signals, after all. A commless thug using more ninja skills than Switch possesses can be easily missed.

"Nice visor, slick," a gruff voice says from behind. "I want it."

Switch turns and smiles at the hobgoblin, forgetting that his mask is still up so the man can't see the friendly gesture. "You don't really want this. It's weird and people laugh at you when you're wearing it. Really, it's more trouble than it's worth."

The hobgoblin takes a step forward. "I like it. Give it to me."

Laughing nervously, Switch shakes his head. "I'm telling you, it's not-"

He takes off running mid-sentence, hoping to catch his antagonist off guard. It works, but doesn't work on the man who steps out from around a corner several yards ahead. This one's human, but tall and built like a brick, as Switch finds out when he runs right into the man.

"Ooof," he grunts, followed by a little squeak as he finds his arms entrapped by meaty fists.

"I believe my friend says he wants your visor, little man."

Switch doesn't like the hideous sneer the man is giving him. The visor was hard to design, and expensive to build, and took a long time to save up for.

Okay, that last one isn't true. Eager to use it, he had gone against his own rules and used his Will money to fund that particular piece of gear. Doing that poses a risk, and it's sort of like cheating in his eyes. He hates the thought of having to cheat again to get another one.

Upon further thought, though, he _has_ been running for a while. He may have enough nuyen stashed away by this point to replace the visor with legitimate Switch-earned money.

A hard punch to his stomach alerts him to the impatience of his captor. Apparently the man doesn't believe in letting a person weigh the options before coming to a conclusion.

"Okay," Switch coughs. "You didn't have to hit me. Would've been just as easy to just take the thing off my face."

"But hitting's more fun," the man answers, his creepy smile growing wider.

Switch straightens up as the hobgoblin approaches, wincing at the action. "Fine. You can have the stupid visor."

"Thank you," the thug says politely, helping himself to the prize. He puts it on, then frowns. "Can't hardly see out of this thing. Lens is too damn dark."

Switch smiles. Of course it is. Without the connection to the comm, the red-tinted glass is nearly impossible to see through at night. It needs the night vision mode activated.

"See? Worthless, right? I can just take it back off your hands, be on my way, and we'll forget this whole thing happened, okay?"

The bigger man still holding him tightens his grip. "Needs a comm to work," he explains to his apparently not-so-tech-savvy friend. That just makes it worse. People who don't know the basics of such a magnificent piece of PAN equipment have no business touching it. And why the hell does the "forget the whole thing happened" negotiation never work, anyway?

The hobgoblin reaches for one of the pockets in Switch's cargos, and he instinctively tries to pull away. It earns him another hit from the big man, one that knocks the air out of him. "Hold still."

The hobgoblin digs out Darwin, one of Switch's mini-droids. "Look at this! It's got a little laser shooter and everything! Oh, I want this. What else do you have?"

"Nothing," Switch lies, and in an act of desperation, brings his foot against his captor's shin. Hard. The guy lets out a small cry and his grip loosens enough for Switch to get out of it. Tending to choose flight over fight, he makes another pass at sprinting off in the opposite direction. The hobgoblin catches up to him quickly, though, and reaches out to grab Switch's arm.

 _Take a swing, just like in your sims. You've done this a millions times._

Switch tries. He balls his hand into a fist and uses the momentum of the goblin spinning him back around to launch his attack. The hit is clumsy and horribly projected. The hobgoblin sees it coming and pulls back slightly, causing Switch's knuckles to barely glance off his cheek. It doesn't seem to injure anything more than the man's pride. It hurts Switch's hand plenty. Punches don't hurt like that in the sims. It's yet another reality check for him.

The hobgoblin looks pissed. So does the big man now stalking towards him like a lion after a baby wildebeest. Switch looks from one to the other, alarm bells ringing in his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry! Here, you can take...take whatever you want. Please don't kill me."

They don't, but they don't exactly let him off without teaching him in a lesson in manners. He manages to twist himself this way and that, making some hits less damaging than they could've been, but two experienced thugs against a tech geek? There isn't much he can do. Once they're done schooling him, they leave him lying in the shadows, stripped of all his toys and gear with the exception of his clothing, not realizing the suit was also a part of the whole PAN system. Not that it matters. It's useless without the comm.

It takes him a little while to push himself back to his feet, and every part of him hurts. He has to pull the mask down for fear of suffocating on the blood flowing freely from his nose and lip. He isn't worried about being recognized, not with the swelling he can already feel and with the natural red paint oozing down from a long split above his eyebrow to mingle with that already covering the lower part of his face.

He stumbles along, using the walls half the time to keep him steady, one arm wrapped around what he's sure to be bruised if not cracked ribs. His left knee doesn't quite respond right to his commands, and he nearly falls several times as he limps along. There's a moment when he pauses at an intersection, knowing there's a Dr. Bob's just down the street. He shudders and moves on. He doesn't need medical attention _that_ badly.

Instead he reluctantly makes his way to a little Computer Exchange franchise he knows in the area. It's not his favorite place to be, but without his PAN he's lucky to have made it this far. Street navigation without being meshed-in is not his forte.

The place is obviously closed, but he knows someone is always awake inside. As he reaches the door, he leans his forehead against the cool metal and gives a weak knock. Through the barrier, he can't tell if there's movement inside, but a voice on the intercom comes through seconds later.

"We're closed, please come back tomorrow," a chipper girl tells him.

"Kiki," he mumbles. "It's Switch. I need to come in."

The door swings inward a second later, and he just lets himself fall forward. Kiki, a youngish Jap-American girl standing a full foot shorter than him, with her thin frame, black, curly hair forever in thick pigtails, short Lolita dress complete with matching ribbons on her punk boots, catches him easily against her perfectly-shaped chest.

"Goodness, Switch, what happened?" She doesn't strain at all as she takes most of his weight, easily maneuvering him over to the couch in the store's waiting room. He coughs lightly and groans in pain as the movement pulls against his ribs, and she watches him with concerned blue eyes.

"Got jumped," he explains. "They took everything. I need a new comm."

"You need a doctor," she scolds, wagging a finger at him.

He shakes his head. "I'll be okay. Just need my PAN so I can get back home."

She puts her hands on her hips and puffs out her already cherub-like cheeks. "You are so stubborn sometimes, Switch. I guess _I'll_ just have to doctor you, then."

"No, Kiki, I'm fine. Can you just go wake up Incarnate? I need that comm."

"Not until you look presentable, mister."

Switch sighs and accepts his fate, knowing how pointless it is to argue with her. The only one she ever really listens to is Incarnate, though for what reasons Switch will never figure out. The guy is generally a complete jerk, but the little AI follows his orders willingly and seems to respect him. Something clearly happened between the two that brought forth that relationship, something that makes Switch guess that maybe Incarnate isn't always as much of a douche as he is in the public eyes. It's exactly that faith that Kiki has in him that keeps Switch as one of Incarnate's regular customers, despite the fact that his first meeting with the guy had been in a Wizzer where Incarnate made an outstanding show of teaching Switch (then Anonyman) just how inferior his hacking abilities were. That was back when Will had not yet gotten into running and was still sneaking around in cyberworld behind Damien's back in the confines of his safe little corp world. He was just lucky that Incarnate never bothered to hack into Will's true personal profile. The guy had no reason to. As far as he was concerned, Anonyman was just a dumb kid trying to play in the big leagues.

He'd been right, of course, and in truth the whole bad experience had made Will want to improve himself. In all the years and improvements since, though, he still can't quite beat Incarnate in a no-holds barred hacking contest. He'd come close here and there, but can't ever quite win, and Incarnate never fails to rub it wholly in his face. Why the guy uses all that talent to hole up in a Computer Shack, acting as an Eraser and builder of fake IDs, Switch will never know.

"You stupid slot, what'd you go and do now?" that familiar, annoyingly condescending voice rings out from the door that leads to the back rooms.

"Hoi," Switch grunts as Kiki manhandles him up into a sitting position, pulling off his shirt in the process. The Japanese elf steps forward, and lets out a whistle at the bruising along Switch's ribs.

"You got blood all over my couch," he says with a frown.

Switch shrugs carefully and nods to Kiki, who's like a whirlwind of hands and medical tape. "She put me here. Ow! Kiki!"

"Sorry, omae." She slows down and works a little more gently at taping him up.

Incarnate shakes his head and sits on the coffee table across from the pair. "I'm gonna charge extra for the patch-up job, ya know."

"I told her-" Switched sucks in a breath as Kiki swabs at the cut on his head, "-not to."

The elf snorts. "Like she'd listen. Little bot's taken to you for some unfathomable reason. Me? I'd have left you bleeding on the floor. And I'm still charging you extra."

"I know." Switch sighs and tries to peer around the AI's arms as he changes the subject to the reason for his being there. "I need a comm."

"Any particular ID?" When it comes to business, Incarnate always flips to serious mode. It's one of the other reasons Switch still chooses to work with him. He knows what to ask, what is needed, and can get the product out in good time.

"No, just something basic to get me around. I'll can it in a couple days."

"PAN gear?"

"Whatever you have laying around. I've got my own backups at home."

 _Except for the visor,_ he thinks with an inner sigh. He'd just have to make due with his normal Switch sunglasses and either the headphones or some ear buds for a while. The specialty gloves would have to be replaced, too, but his basic black leather ones would work just fine in the interim. They just wouldn't look as cool.

"Erase the old one?" Incarnate continues.

This brings a little smile to Switch's face. "Fry it. The whole system."

Incarnate matches the smile. "As much as I hate to admit this, on the rare occasion I do like the way you think, omae. I'll make sure to tap into it when the user's jacked in, mess with his head a bit before I blow it. Of course, revenge costs extra, too."

Switch rolls his eyes and nods as Incarnate gets back to his feet.

"Hey, Kiki," he calls over his shoulder. "Don't forget to take care of his knee. He's favoring it."

Switch jerks his hand back away from his injured knee, unaware that he'd been lightly cupping his fingers over it. She puts on her pouty face again.

"Let me see it, Switch."

"It's fi-"

"Switch! Either you drop your pants or I'll do it for you!"

Incarnate laughs as he slips out of the room to go work on the needed merchandise, leaving Switch at the mercy of the determined-to-mother-hen-him-to-death AI.


End file.
